In This Episode…
After reviewing Gary Keller’s excellent book “The One Thing” yesterday, I have taken the opportunity today to dive a little bit deeper into his work to see if I can find some gems to help me decide what to do on a day to day, minute by minute process. I share:
- Gary Keller’s 3 level iceberg model for achieving extraordinary results.
- The five factors for personal happiness from a past president of the American Psychological Society.
- Why simply making ANY decision on what your purpose might be is better than making no decision at all.
- How a Google search led me to the simple (yet most powerful) answer I was looking for.
- That I already knew what my purpose was… I’d just parked it in the shadows of my mind for a while.
Episode Show Notes…
00:08 – After reviewing The One Thing by Gary Keller yesterday, I decided it was time to dig a little deeper into his work.
00:34 – The third part of his book is called “Extraordinary Results” which brings guidance on how to unlock the possibilities within us.
01:04 – Keller has a three level iceberg model that consists of the following parts:
- Productivity
- Priority
- Purpose
01:16 – On page 138 of the book he says:
Our purpose sets our priority and our priority determines the productivity our action produces
Gary Keller & Jay Papasan, The One Thing
01:27 – Purpose is the foundation of Keller’s model and he uses Charles Dickens’ Scrooge character from “The Christmas Carol” as the analogy for the connection of the choices around purpose, priority and productivity.
02:07 – Martin Seligman, one of the founding fathers of positive psychology believes there are 5 factors for happiness:
- Positive emotion and pleasure
- Achievement
- Relationships
- Engagement
- Meaning
02:42 – He believes Engagement and Meaning are the most important of the five. When our daily actions fulfil a bigger purpose then we will live a more meaningful life.
03:04 – In my mind now that I have probed its pages a little more thoroughly, the “Purpose” chapter in the One Thing is a bit light. However it does recommend that in absence of a definitive answer, just choose something to start with.
03:46 – Before I made a decision I elected to go to our friend Google and I did a search on “How do I find my purpose in life?” I came across a great blog post by Mark Manson called “7 Strange Questions That Help You Find Your Life Purpose“.
05:08 – I scanned the blog post before dipping into it and discovered the questions were a little quirky and clearly designed to get you thinking differently.
05:42 – However what caught my eye was something at the beginning of the blog post that meant I didn’t need to read any further to get what I needed. He said people generally ask the wrong question about discovering their purpose. Here is the question they should be asking:
What can I do with my time that is important?
Mark Manson, Personal Development Author and Blogger
06:03 – That was all I needed.
06:56 – My purpose is to have people learn and laugh and laugh and learn.
07:42 – Tomorrow I shall explore the “Priority” part of Keller’s iceberg model.
